“I arrived on KI from South Africa in January 2014 to start a new job, never having set foot in South Australia before that. We have settled in very happily and really appreciate the beauty, the peace and quiet, as well as being a part of a small, friendly community – knowing different people, seeing them on the street, all of that. My background is in agro-ecology and I’ve always worked in conservation, agriculture, rural development and land management. I’ve also worked with indigenous communities a fair bit, communities living in and around conservation areas, focusing on ecotourism planning and development, and other livelihood options. I am not a fearful person but I do worry about the state of the natural world and the future of humanity. We are not looking after the planet in the way that we should be. I think we have all the knowledge we need to go about things in a better way. In my current work with the agricultural sector for example, my departure point is that a healthy, functioning eco-system provides a healthy, natural base for profitable production and healthy people. That is what we want, that win-win-win, not the false narrative of the environment or the economy, the environment or jobs. I guess, greed is what drives things and that is why the planet is being wrecked and inequality is off the charts. Many new technologies aren’t properly tested, or the information is hidden, and no one is having public conversations about how they should or shouldn’t be used. We need to slow down, to stop for a moment and think. Technology can be used for good, but it can also be used for bad, or inadvertently lead to something undesirable. I definitely see a drive to push humanity into a technological future that does not seem to be in our best interests, either for people or the Earth herself. So, that is probably the overwhelming concern for me in my life. You can look at it all in geological time say, and sure, civilisations have come and gone before us, and creatures have disappeared and new ones have arisen, and that’s all true. But I just think how stupid. Surely, we want to evolve past that and use our hearts and minds together and live in the right way, you know, in the right relation with the world around us and with each other. When I look around me, I see many good people doing good things, so I have hope. For my own part, I am moving towards a simpler, more self-sufficient and creative life.”
Phillipa
